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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 24 Feb 2000

Vol. 515 No. 2

Written Answers. - Drug Refund Scheme.

Alan Shatter

Question:

147 Mr. Shatter asked the Minister for Health and Children the reason an instruction was issued to pharmacists to obtain the PRSI number of each person availing of the drugs payment scheme many months after the commencement of the scheme. [5616/00]

The drug payment scheme, with a threshold of £42 per month per individual or family unit was introduced on 1 July 1999 and replaced the drug cost subsidisation scheme and drug refund scheme. The primary aim of the drug payment scheme is to bring about important improvements over the previous schemes and the scheme is designed to be more streamlined, user friendly and to significantly improve the cash flow situation for families and individuals incurring ongoing expenditure on medicines.

To benefit under the drug payment scheme a patient must be registered with a health board and such registration recorded on the general medical services, payments, board patient masterfile. A unique identifier was required for the scheme which would also serve to link families together for the purposes of the £42 monthly threshold and which would provide a single data base which did not allow for duplication. As a person's personal public service, RSI, number is already a unique identifier it was decided to adopt the RSI Number as the unique identifier for the drug payment scheme. RSI numbers are required for valid registration. A national "mail shot" to every household was carried out in mid 1999 about the drug payment scheme requesting individuals and heads of families to register under the scheme as early as possible to reap the benefits of the scheme. To date approximately 600,000 persons have registered. It was agreed with representatives of community pharmacists that patients who had not registered for the scheme and so could have been liable for any substantial pharmacy bills would have the facility to complete an application for registration at the time when prescriptions were being dispensed and thereby be allowed to cap their expenditure at £42 as provided for under the scheme. As indicated earlier a person's RSI number, being a unique identifier, is required for the completion of an application for registration. This method of patient registration was introduced and has been continued at the request of community pharmacy representatives.
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